November 2022 – Akira Rabelais

Everything returns to normal after Чорнобильська катастрофа. That is, everything but art. Most of the great works are lost, and it is up to people like William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth to restore the lost artwork of the human race. He finds strange goings-on at a resort enough to remind him of all the lines of the play, dealing with mob boss Don Learo and his daughter Cordelia, a strange professor named Jean Luc-Godard (sic), who repeatedly xeroxes his hand for no particular reason. He is followed by four humanoid goblins that keep tormenting Cordelia. There is also the gentleman whose girlfriend, Valerie, isn’t always visible.

Centering around the phrase ‘No Thing’. Jean Luc Godard, a stalwart of the French New Wave Cinema, superimposes his eccentric avant garde experimentalism, a Study based on the Classic Shakespearean tragedy King Lear, in a modern contextual interpretation. The following a non-linear plot structure as referred Shot In The Back in the intertitle. Godard brings his personal approach, rendering a modern interpretation, and his subjective construction.

Peter Sellars as a descendant of the legendary playwright William Shakespeare sets forth to revive his ancestors lost art in a world post the Chernobyl disaster. He discovers the characters under mysterious circumstances at a hotel in Nyon Vaud, Switzerland (the locale is alluded as a mystical place in between France and Germany with sea and woods). Don Learo and his daughter Cordelia substitute the father-daughter duo of the Shakespearean classic suffering from a similar or identical hamartia, a tragic flaw so ingrained in the father-daughter relationship as the existential fight between Power versus Virtue. The end is predictable, as Cordelia succumbs failing to express her love for her father. The lack of not having her heart in her mouth suffocates her in awkward circumstances depicted through her internal psychological conflict, brooding silence and disinterested appearance. Her inability and inexpression tortures her father intolerably as he attempts over the time to silence her silence. The No Thing or Nothing of Cordelia results in a faulty meaning generation owing to her fathers incapacity of acceptance and understanding, rather misinterpreting her silence as a lack of love, leading to the tragic conclusion too late to rectify. Other alternate character additions worth mentioning: Professor Pluggy (starring Godard himself) a frenzied clairvoyant substitute of the Shakespearean Fool, obsessed with photocopying his own hand, whose strangely mysterious last words bear an uncannily absurd co-incidental reference to the name of the film editor Mr Alien featuring in the end. Godard also incorporates Shakespeares paranormal elements in the form of four shadowy human-like figures imitating and following the central characters everywhere (as depicted in first half when Peter scribbles on a notepad whilst walking around the woods seeking inspiration the human goblins emulate and follow him). Godard surpasses nudity with this film, as he barely includes any intimate sequence or moments. As his character Peter is required by Cannon Films (the actual film Distributor) to exclusively exclude any form of nudity from his creative themes thus directing his interest in the father-daughter conversations patronising them as his central characters.

The camera work and cinematography is well conceived opening new perspectives. The mise en scene is seamlessly blended as thematically the desolate tourist location is ideal, merging the backdrop smoothly into the plot. But the real show stealer are the ground breaking dialogues, interesting sound bits (of screeching sea gulls), intense voice-overs and critical soliloquies as the plot gains momentum from the audio sound bits and the voice-overs helping in character introspection and giving psychological insight in the characters mental state. Reference clippings of Renaissance artworks of Michelangelo with some French Impressionism along with special emphasis on The Girl With A Pearl Earring of Johannes Vermeer and paintings of Francisco Goya, etc are focused through a candle flame depicting the necessity of art revival in the modern world interests.

It appeared as the third and last clock stopped its ticking. Steel saw it first, then Rob. Sapphire was also aware of its presence. It was a moving, flickering shape that appeared high up, near the apex of the end wall. It seemed, as first, to be a part of the wall texture itself. As if the plaster of the wall was shifting. Then it appeared to take on a series of quick, broken images. Robe felt that it looked like pieces of old and faded moving-film, except that these images were three-dimensional. Rob also thought that he heard, under the rumbling of the skin-like fabric, the sound of voices that seemed to squeal with laughter of pain, or both.

Sapphire nodded. ‘Time.’ She put her arm about Helen’s shoulders and drew the child close to her as she continued to address Rob. ‘You can’t see it. Only now and again. Perhaps a glimpse, that’s all. But even that is dangerous. Also, you cannot enter into Time.’ The smile left her face. In its place was the calm, cool look. It was a look that somehow helped to illustrate her theme. The look itself seemed ageless, as if the blueness, that she radiated, was somehow both the colour and the secret of time.

There were no large cupboards in the room, not even a wardrobe. Helen’s clothes were hung in a built-in unit on the landing outside. The door through which Rob had entered was the only door. The room also had only one window. This was fitted with half-length curtains which were drawn to. Rob moved across the room and snatched the curtains open. The small window was shut tight. There was also a child-guard screwed to about two thirds of the window height. Rob tested the guard. It was still fixed firmly in place.

Steel passed the picture. ‘I doubt it,’ he said as he began to descend the first flight of stairs. Rob followed him. He still felt tired, but he did not fancy sleeping in his own bedroom. Not at the moment. He passed the picture, thinking that there was another couch in the sitting room. Maybe if he fell asleep on that, or even pretended to sleep on it, Sapphire might make him a bed there and tuck him up for the night. He was even wondering, though he would never admit it, what a kiss goodnight from Sapphire would be like.

Rob waited, feeling like someone who was fixed to a spot. Fixed there forever. His mind was filled with a jumble of thoughts. Perhaps this was the time-corridor thing. This place. A nowhere place. Perhaps he was to be left here now. Perhaps it would never be morning, and never be night again. Perhaps it would always stay like this, the very same time. So therefore he would never feel hungry, never feel tired, never feel anything but this strange sense of isolation, of not belonging. Perhaps it would be like that for him forever.

Rob and Helen were back in the kitchen again with Sapphire. Constable Daly had driven back to Scars Edge. He looked slightly puzzled, in the way that people do when they feel that they have been somewhere, or done something before, perhaps in a dream. But he had left feeling satisfied. Rob had watched, without being able to say a word, as Steel moved into action. He had literally stepped into Daly’s arrival at the door, like a fair-owner stepping on to a moving roundabout. Therefore it became Steel, not Rob, who had opened the door, Steel who had asked Daly what he wanted, who told the policeman that everything was alright at that house, and that he, Steel, was a friend of the family who was visiting, in the hope of some peace and quiet in the country.

Month: November 2022

King Lear … Fear & Loathing. A Study. An Approach. A Clearing. No Thing

A rip in the fabric of Time, unnerving but fascinating